Voting is one of the hallmarks of democracy, but counting votes or ballots is a perennial problem. Recent elections have been marred by controversies suggesting that ballots were improperly counted in various statewide and national races in the United States, and allegations of theft of elections occur regularly in other parts of the world. Election monitors are a regular feature in many parts of the world.
Historically, certain types of election systems have allowed for play within the system—the ability to change the outcome of a close election by committing election fraud in difficult to detect ways. Allegations of election fraud have played a part in many historical elections, not least of which was the close national race between Kennedy and Nixon in 1960. Moreover, machine politics has a long and colorful history in general, with suggestions that political machines could and did throw elections to favored candidates, whether honestly or dishonestly. It has also been suggested that some machines routinely throw elections where no risk exists, merely to keep the machine working effectively.
Problems with counting ballots corrode the system in a variety of ways. Voters can be discouraged from voting and thereby exercising rights due to a belief that a vote will not count. Election supervisors experience poor morale due to allegations of fraud or incompetence brought on by problems with voting—whether legitimate or not. Any discretion accorded to the person counting votes provides power, but also provides an opening for criticism about use of such discretion.
Thus, it may be useful to provide a voting system which eliminates most forms of discretion and judgment—that related to whether to count a ballot due to issues such as processing of a ballot or questions about voter intent. Technology potentially provides a solution to such problems. However, many technological solutions lack features desirable for a robust and complete voting system. Thus, it may be desirable to provide a system which allows for an auditable record of votes and public access to vote information.